Category Archives: activities

PROMPT: Productive

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When do you feel most productive?
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Uhh… when I’m being most productive, which is to say when I’m producing something in an efficient manner. (Not sure if it’s a trick question.) Obviously, if I’ve felt the need to check my phone, social media, etc. it’s not a highly productive time because I’m not engaged with what I’m producing. Also, I have lots of time when I’m intensely engaged with an activity, but I’m not producing anything, and so that isn’t being productive per se — though it may be highly beneficial and essential to well-being. (Although, my dictionary / thesaurus have definitions of “productive” that equate it with “constructive” which changes everything. Though it also equates “intelligence,” “erudition,” and “wisdom,” which is a highly suspect understanding of wisdom.)

PROMPT: Lose Yourself

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What activities do you lose yourself in?
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Lately, swimming… and, of course, rap battles.

PROMPT: Failure

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How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
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If one fails and one tries again, one will make course corrections. Keep repeating that cycle, and one is bound to home in on success.

Psychologically, I think juggling is a fantastic skill to practice because one must fail a million times and keep going. Furthermore, one must learn to choose failure over a spastic success (and condition that behavior in on the fly.) By this I mean, one must learn to let the ball drop rather than lunging to make a frantic catch, because if you are always making wild reaches, you’ll never achieve a smooth, natural rhythm. In other words, a catch that keeps the ball in the air for one or two more throws is not truly a success if it trains a wobbly, unsustainable movement pattern. More generally, one must redefine what constitutes success or failure at a fundamental level.

PROMPT: Grow

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What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

The ones that involved repeated non-catastrophic failures (e.g. martial arts practice.)

Also, the ones that confronted fears (e.g. open sea swimming.)

PROMPT: Ideal Day

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Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.
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Hiking in the mountains (at most, low- to mid-VHE [Very High Elevation].) Wake at sunrise, walk, pitch camp before sunset.

PROMPT: Scared

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What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

Going to a cocktail party with no one I know in attendance. FYI —Things that would generate less anxiety include: cage-fighting, gator-wrestling, skydiving, and (admittedly with the appearance of irony) giving a speech to a large audience.

A battle-hardened phalanx with pointy sticks.

PROMPT: Family Traditions

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Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

The Festivus Day Airing of Grievances.

Arbor Day Eve’s Trimming of the Shrubbery.

Goat Wrangling on the Third Thursday of September.

PROMPT: Leisure Time

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What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
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That’s trickier than it seems. I quite enjoy reading and many forms of bodily movement activities (e.g. swimming, yoga, taiji, qigong, exercise, etc.,) but I’d count them more as personal development activities than leisure activities. (Even something as seemingly non-purposeful as juggling.) I sometimes watch TV / movies, but I don’t know that I’d say I enjoy that so much as find it an opportunity to zone out.

PROMPT: First Day

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Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

I can’t say I have strong recollections of any of them. I have a vague recollection of the flight to basic training (first time flying, but mostly I remember there was a drunk dude sitting next to me,) but I don’t recall anything from my first day in the military proper. No first days of school or on any job have stuck.

I guess my clearest memory is for the most recent major first — first day living in Bangalore, India (a little over eleven years ago.) I must say, however, I just remember snippets of being lost in a walk around the neighborhood. One might expect a first day in urban India to be daunting / overwhelming- even for a reasonably well-traveled Westerner, but if it was I don’t remember that bit.

PROMPT: Positive Events

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What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?
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Just, oh so many of them. Virtually all of them. I’ve succeeded in every breath I took (so far, fingers crossed.)